I don't know how to say this in a good way, while I am pretty excited for the future of this whole thing of vibe coding and it's power, it's extremely sad to see the powerlessness that it accords to the developer. Just some minits ago, I read a post from a developer that has added over 30 feature to their program in 1 week, but only use a fraction of them. The fact that we are very much left out from being a user of our own stuff is really saddening. Maybe this is too far fetch, but we are in a future in which we are a kin to a corporation that produce food for the mass that they themselves wouldnt eat at the first place. We create so much consumption, but we consume very little from it. We are not the intended user nor even a user of our own vibe coded solution, we can't really know not only what is coded, but how our program works, even in a high level. That's, to me, the thing that we less talk about.
Yes, it's our idea, and yes, maybe it's our guided design, but we are still left out from being a faithful user of our product.
This is mainly due to the nonstop production that leads to very less consumption.

In fastplay, are there ways to make the app remember last position played for an m4b file and how to bookmark places to return later?

My experience with whatsnap is snappy, and considerably resource efficient than the web and the desktop client. How certain is the account bann for using third party clients? have anyone experience this before? #blind #whatsapp https://boostofstudios.com/whatsnap

Calvin Cloud
🌾 BIG NEWS! THE FIELDS OF FORTUNE BETA IS FINALLY HERE! 🌾

After putting in a ton of work, I’m excited to announce that Fields of Fortune is officially ready for beta testing! 🎉

Fields of Fortune is more than just a farming game. It’s a farming adventure where you can build your own farm, grow your business, raise animals, unlock new skills, and turn a small piece of land into something incredible. Whether you love relaxing farming games, building your own little empire, or managing every detail of your farm, there’s something here for you!

🌱 HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO IN FIELDS OF FORTUNE!

🚜 BUILD AND EXPAND YOUR FARM
Start your farming journey and grow your land as you progress. Purchase additional land sections with coins and develop different areas of your farm, including crop fields, orchards, greenhouses, and livestock areas. Build your farming operation your way and keep expanding as you earn more money.

🌽 PLANT, GROW, AND HARVEST CROPS
Discover different crops as you level up, each with its own growing time, harvest quantities, and selling value. Plant your crops, let them grow, and harvest them when they’re ready. Crops can have Normal, Good, or Excellent quality, influenced by your skills, fertilizer, seeds, and equipment. The better your farming operation becomes, the more opportunities you have to increase your profits!

🐄 RAISE ANIMALS AND BUILD YOUR LIVESTOCK BUSINESS
Visit the village livestock shop to purchase animals and expand your livestock operation. Discover different breeds as you progress, each with its own costs, growth times, and products. Keep your animals healthy and happy, take care of their needs, and collect the products they produce.

🏭 BUILD PRODUCTION BUSINESSES
Unlock production buildings as you reach the required levels and use your resources to create products. Turn your farming operation into more than just a place to grow crops. Build up your production capabilities and create new opportunities to earn coins.

🛒 BUY, SELL, AND MANAGE YOUR INVENTORY
Manage your inventory, organize your resources, shop for supplies, and sell items to earn coins. As your farm grows, you’ll have more products and resources to manage, giving you plenty of ways to develop your farming business.

👷 HIRE WORKERS AND UPGRADE YOUR FARM
Use your hard-earned coins to hire workers and improve your operation. Upgrade your storage buildings to increase capacity, improve your equipment, and invest in your farm's future. Every upgrade helps you build toward a bigger and better farming business.

📈 LEVEL UP AND DEVELOP YOUR SKILLS
Earn experience as you play, unlock new content, and develop your farming skills. Spend coins to upgrade your skills and improve different parts of your operation. The more you progress, the more possibilities open up!

🎯 DISCOVER NEW GOALS AS YOU PROGRESS
Fields of Fortune gives you plenty to work toward, from unlocking new crops and animal breeds to expanding your land, improving your production buildings, and increasing your farm's efficiency. There is always another goal to chase and another way to improve your farm.

♿ FARMING FOR EVERYONE
One of the biggest goals behind Fields of Fortune is making farming games more accessible.

Fields of Fortune is being developed with blind and sighted players in mind. Accessibility isn't supposed to mean sacrificing the visual experience, and beautiful graphics shouldn't mean leaving players who use screen readers behind.

The goal is to make the game enjoyable for players who use Apple's VoiceOver screen reader while also delivering a detailed farming experience for sighted players. From managing crops and animals to navigating menus and making important decisions, accessibility is a major part of the experience.

💚 THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN!

The beta is officially open, and I'm looking for players who are willing to jump in, explore the game, and help make Fields of Fortune even better.

Whether you're a farming game veteran or someone looking for something new to play, I'd love for you to give it a try.

Most importantly, I WANT YOUR FEEDBACK!

Tell me what you love, what you think needs improvement, what feels confusing, and what you'd like to see in the future. If something doesn't work the way you expect, let me know. If you have an idea that could make the game better, I want to hear it.

No game becomes great without listening to the people who play it, and I want the community to have a voice in helping Fields of Fortune grow.

This is just the beginning, and I'm excited to see where we can take this together.

🌾 Your farm is waiting. Your adventure starts now!

Welcome to Fields of Fortune! 💚

If you try the beta, please leave a comment and tell me what you think. Your feedback truly means a lot!
https://testflight.apple.com/join/aw8jBFQq
#games #blind

Loredana Roundhead Lania
Finally!
After 10 days of "waiting for review"...
The café is officially open!

🎉☕ POCKET KITCHEN: COZY CAFE IS FINALLY ON THE APP STORE! 🥞🍳

After about six months of development, testing, debugging, rebuilding, accidentally making food float where food should definitely not float, and preparing an unreasonable number of virtual coffees... Pocket Kitchen: Cozy Cafe is finally out. ❤️

Pocket Kitchen is a cozy, accessible cooking game where you run your own little café kiosk.

Choose ingredients, cook food, assemble sandwiches, make drinks, serve the finished order, earn coins, and unlock more recipes as you play.

🥞 start with simple recipes, earn coins, and use them to unlock more recipes and ingredients, or buy decorations for your kiosk.

🍔🍟🥤 prepare combo meals,... once you find the unlockable that activates them.

🔥 Pay attention while cooking — food can go from ready to burnt if you leave it too long

Pocket Kitchen includes VoiceOver support, clear sound cues and haptic feedback, high-contrast options, and a dyslexia-friendly font. The goal is for blind and sighted players to be able to play the same game.

There are no ads, subscriptions or in-app purchases. You buy the game once and the café is yours.

And this is only the beginning. Pocket Kitchen has already started demanding future recipes and features from me, and apparently it has very strong opinions. 😂

For any feedback or support, use the "feedback and support" option in settings. For home delivery orders of actual food directly from our café, I didn't create that version, yet.

https://apps.apple.com/sg/app/pocket-kitchen-cozy-cafe/id6761682033
#games #blind

Accessible Harry Potter trivia game for iPhone With thousand questions and millionaire like format, Sidney Tambin.
⁨Mobile Accessible Games (for the Blind)⁩ facebook group.
Introducing Galleonaire, a free, unofficial Harry Potter quiz game made for fellow fans. Test your knowledge of the books, films and wizarding world as you work your way towards one million Galleons, with lifelines to help along the way!

You can play on iPhone and Apple Watch, and accessibility has been important throughout development, including support for VoiceOver.

I’m really excited to share this milestone with you. Please give it a try, and any honest ratings and reviews on the App Store would be hugely appreciated. Your feedback will help me improve the game and help other fans discover it.

Download Galleonaire here:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/galleonaire/id6811170867

An independent fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by J. K. Rowling, Warner Bros. or the Harry Potter rights holders.
#blind #ios #trivia #screenReader #games #HarryPotter #Accessibility

If you have experience with braille, please consider taking and sharing the Global Braille Survey.

One part of the More Braille: More Empowerment campaign that I particularly want to highlight is the Global Braille Survey.

It is trying to build evidence about how braille is taught, learned, produced, accessed and used around the world.

As of 8 October 2026:

• 2,202 completed responses
• 96 countries and territories
• 16 languages

That sounds encouraging, but there is an important problem.

More than half of all responses have come from only five countries.

Around three in five responses have been completed in English.

Parents and caregivers account for fewer than one in twenty responses.

So having thousands of responses does not automatically make something globally representative.

I particularly hope more people from South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East and other less represented regions and language communities will participate.

The survey has four versions for:

• Blind, low vision and deafblind adults aged 18+
• Parents and guardians of blind, low vision and deafblind children
• Teachers and other professionals involved in braille education
• Braille transcribers

You do not need to be an expert braille reader.

Even if you were never given the opportunity to learn braille, that experience is relevant too.

Take the survey here:

tiny.cc/braillesurvey

It remains open until 31 December 2026.

⸻

I also want to add an important qualification.

This survey will not magically solve the braille-access problems we face globally.

Some people contacted me after I previously shared it and rightly pointed out that many braille readers who should be represented in research like this may never encounter an online survey at all.

Many people are not technologically confident.

Some may have limited internet access.

Some may not belong to online blindness communities.

And although the survey is available in a growing number of languages, it is still unavailable in many local languages.

This creates a real risk: the people easiest to reach digitally can become the people whose experiences define what we think the global braille situation looks like.

So, if you have ability, influence, organisational capacity or simply access that somebody else does not have, I would encourage you to go further than just sharing the link.

1. Help translate it.

Work with your organisation or community to help make the survey available in languages that are currently missing. You can contact ICEVI at:

info@icevi.org

1. Help somebody complete it.

Reach beyond WhatsApp groups, mailing lists, Mastodon, Facebook and other online spaces.

Talk to braille readers in your local community.

Talk to older braille users.

Talk to parents.

Talk to teachers and transcribers.

And where appropriate, help somebody access and complete the survey rather than assuming that sharing a link means they can participate independently.

ICEVI and WBU also say that alternative arrangements can be made for people who have difficulty completing the survey online.

Contact:

info@icevi.org
info@wbu.ngo

Responses are anonymous, IP addresses are not collected, and almost every question is optional.

The survey has also received human-research ethics approval from the University of Kansas.

Representation does not happen simply because participation is technically open to everyone. Sometimes we have to actively bring people into the conversation.

Please take the survey, but more importantly, help make sure that people beyond our usual online circles can take part too.

#GlobalBrailleSurvey #MoreBrailleMoreEmpowerment #Braille #BrailleLiteracy #Accessibility #Blindness #DisabilityResearch

More Braille: More Empowerment — some important developments

I wanted to share a few developments from the ICEVI–World Blind Union Global Braille Literacy Campaign, More Braille: More Empowerment.

The campaign was officially launched on World Braille Day, 4 January 2026, around a simple but important principle:

Braille literacy is a right, not a privilege.

One of its biggest developments so far is the Global Declaration on Braille Literacy in Education.

The Declaration calls on governments, education systems and service providers to recognise the right of blind, low vision and deafblind learners to learn and use braille, with access to properly trained teachers, learning materials and appropriate technology.

It was launched at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in June 2026.

As of 7 October, it had been endorsed by:

• 179 organisations
• 160 individuals
• National organisations across 70 countries
• International and regional bodies including the European Blind Union, World Braille Council, WIPO Accessible Books Consortium and International Publishers Association.

Perhaps even more importantly, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has now formally supported the Declaration.

On 27 August 2026, the Committee published a statement on Braille Literacy in Education: Implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

This matters because braille advocacy can now be taken to ministries of education, teacher-training institutions, universities and other decision makers not simply as a request for better services, but as something grounded directly in States’ obligations under the CRPD.

If your organisation has not endorsed the Declaration, please consider doing so.

Online endorsement form:
forms.gle/78TkRcSRmtDVMnb56

Declaration, translations and list of endorsers:
icevi.org/global-declaration-add-your-voice

You can also endorse by emailing:
info@icevi.org

And there is another area where people can help: translation.

The Declaration is already available in several languages, but ICEVI is particularly seeking help with major languages including Hindi, Chinese, Arabic and Russian.

I would especially encourage organisations and braille communities across Asia, Africa, Latin America and other underrepresented regions to look at this.

A global declaration on braille cannot truly be global if the people whose languages, education systems and braille experiences are different from those of the English-speaking world are missing from it.

More Braille: More Empowerment.

#MoreBrailleMoreEmpowerment #Braille #BrailleLiteracy #Blindness #InclusiveEducation #DisabilityRights #CRPD

Happy international White cane day, I'm sharing this article by @payown@dragonscaveto mark the occasion, hope @doubletap can devote an entire hour or curate the radio schedule around White Cane topics.
https://payown.substack.com/p/the-cane-got-me-here
#blind #cane #independent #Navigation #tech

The BrailleDB database https://brailledb.seeinghands.org/ contains features and specifications of, to our knowledge, every Braille display, notetaker, Braille keyboard, and similar device available for purchase today. We also include many devices which have been announced but can’t be purchased yet and some historical devices that may still appear in the used device market. With BrailleDB, you can find a full list of features for any device, see a side-by-side comparison between any set of devices, and filter devices by the features you are looking for. Because there are a lot of things to consider about any access technology, we also have a full glossary of terms explaining what each feature is and why you might consider them important in making your decision.

Devices can be filtered by many attributes and as few or as many as you desire. Whether you want to see all multiline displays, all 40-cell displays that are available for purchase today with the ability to edit text files, or all displays shorter than 20 centimeters in length that have onboard translation for Spanish and Japanese, BrailleDB can do that.

What’s coming next?
This initial version of the database is only the beginning. We have a few ideas for things to do. The used Braille display market is strong, given the high price of new equipment, so there is a benefit in adding more historical display information here. We already have 12 discontinued devices listed, but there are far more that we should consider adding.

Mostly, though, what’s next is to see what we never thought of. As you use the database, if there’s anything you think would be useful, use the contact link on the top of any page to let us know. The same goes for anything that doesn’t work right or where something could be made easier to use. We know a database can never answer all the questions that come up when choosing between options, but if you have one that would fit, we are going to try to find a way that it can.

Get involved
Would you like to help improve this system with us? We would appreciate anyone interested in joining our team of volunteers. You don’t need any particular skills, just an interest in what we’re doing. If you’re interested in testing new features and letting us know where we’ve gotten it wrong, describing devices as we add them to the database, discussing how to implement new suggested features, or any idea you have for how you could help, we would be delighted to welcome you to the team. If this sounds interesting, fill out this quick volunteer survey, https://s.seeinghands.org/brailledbvolunteersurvey and we’ll soon be in touch to discuss what you would like to do.
https://seeinghands.org/index.php/2026/08/14/new-braille-device-database/
#Braille #Blind

@serrebi I am struggling to navigate the recent conversation ctrl+shift+h view on Blind pilot. It takes about 20 second to launch the entire window, and says I have one conversation. When I change the recent folder to all folders, it loads very slowly and release from hanging after about 15 seconds. Then, when I tab to the conversation list, screen reader do not announce nor change focus when I arrow up and down.

I'm really fortunate to contribute to@serrebi@serrebiradio.com add-on store mirror helper NVDA add-on.

The most exciting enhancements for me are:

• The change log viewer allows us to view the change log for every version of a particular add-on through the store.
• From the store, another cool feature is that you can press Share and directly get the add-on name, description, and the download link.

I'm working on adding some other small features as well. Thanks to the maintainer for the freedom and trust.

https://github.com/serrebidev/nvda-addon-mirror/releases/latest
#nvda

@NVAccess For those who would want to see the possibility of NVDA having this feature, can participate here, and share your thoughts. https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/discussions/20964

I’m really perplexed sometimes by how @NVAccess decides to close certain GitHub issues.

Take issue #6788, opened by Derek Riemer in January 2017, proposing an advanced configuration editor for NVDA.

This was long before the current ADR process, and it was essentially a community member proposing a feature and inviting feedback before submitting a pull request. The issue received positive responses, and there was some useful discussion about how such a feature could work, where it should be placed, and the risks of allowing users to modify hidden configuration settings.

The discussion never resulted in the feature being merged, and the issue remained open for almost ten years.

Then, suddenly, today, NV Access closed it with the explanation that they do not want to encourage or support hidden configuration items, and that improving the existing settings dialog would be preferable.

I can understand this reasoning. At one level, I even agree with it. There are legitimate concerns about exposing settings that could potentially break things, and I don’t think every community suggestion necessarily needs to become a feature.

But what troubles me is the process. Why close an issue that has been sitting there for years without first asking whether the original requester or anyone else is still interested in pursuing it? Why not revisit the discussion, explain how the project’s thinking has evolved, and invite feedback before making a final decision?

Perhaps the feature no longer fits NVDA’s direction. That’s perfectly reasonable. But the people who contributed their ideas and time to the discussion deserve more than a one-line explanation after nearly a decade.

NV Access certainly has the responsibility to steer NVDA’s development, establish policies, and decide what belongs in the product. I don’t dispute that. But open-source development is also about how those decisions are made, how disagreements are handled, and how the community is treated along the way.

An issue being open does not mean that a feature has been promised. Equally, closing an issue should not make years of community discussion feel inconsequential.

I wish NV Access would approach decisions like this with a little more openness and consideration for the people who have contributed to these conversations over the years.
https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/6788#event-32734273492

#nvda #screenReader

Hey @FreakyFwoof When Looking at @mewproj@fwoof.space soundscape project on Mac, I'm reminded of your old Windows 44.1k soundscape. Do you have a newer version of it, or have you updated them in any way?

I’m popping up here because I’d really like to learn more about white canes from people who have actually tried different ones.

When I was living in Malaysia, I never really took the time to explore different cane designs or brands. I basically used what I had. I’m about 187 cm tall, and my current cane is around 140 cm. It came from Hong Kong, and embarrassingly I don’t actually know what brand or model it is.

Now that I’m studying in Singapore, Guide Dogs Singapore has offered to help me find a good cane. They’ve mentioned Revolution Advantage, and they also have the WeWALK Smart Cane 2, which I understand is based around a conventional mobility cane with ultrasonic obstacle detection.

This has sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole.

I’ve now come across things like:

• Revolution Advantage graphite canes
• AmbuTech aluminum, graphite and SlimLine canes
• AwareWolf All-Terrain Cane
• AwareWolf Urban Xplorer
• NFB rigid fiberglass and carbon-fibre canes
• NFB folding and telescoping carbon-fibre canes
• Comde-Derenda canes
• Svárovský canes
• smart canes such as WeWALK

And I’m only now learning that “a cane” can mean quite different things: rigid, folding, telescoping, telefolding, aluminum, fiberglass, graphite/carbon fibre, different numbers of sections, different joint designs, different handles and a bewildering number of tips.

So I’d love to hear from cane nerds. 🙂

A few questions:

1. What cane do you actually use every day, and why?
2. If you’ve used both AmbuTech and Revolution Advantage, how different do they feel in practice? Is the Revolution noticeably lighter or better at transmitting tactile information?
3. What is the real-world difference between a rigid cane and a folding cane? Do rigid canes genuinely give substantially better feedback, or is the difference relatively small with modern graphite folding canes?
4. What about telescoping canes? Are they mainly convenient, or do you lose tactile feedback, rigidity or reliability compared with folding canes?
5. Has anyone used a cane that combines telescoping and folding sections?
6. How important is the number of sections? For example, would you rather have a five-section cane that is slightly longer when folded, or a six/seven-section cane that packs much smaller?
7. How do Revolution’s joints compare with AmbuTech’s? I’ve heard people specifically praise Revolution’s all-graphite construction and joints that don’t stick.
8. Has anyone used the AwareWolf Urban Xplorer? How does it compare with a normal graphite mobility cane for everyday pavement, buildings, public transport and city walking?
9. And what about the All-Terrain Cane? Is it genuinely useful as an everyday cane as well as for hiking, grass, gravel, beaches and rough ground, or is it too heavy for normal long-distance urban travel?
10. Has anyone here used the NFB-style long rigid cane? I’d particularly like to understand why some experienced travellers strongly prefer a long, very light rigid cane over folding designs.
11. Does anyone have experience with European canes such as Comde-Derenda or Svárovský? They seem to have some designs that I rarely hear discussed in English-speaking blind communities.
12. What materials do you prefer: aluminum, fiberglass, graphite/carbon fibre or something else? What differences do you actually notice in weight, sound, vibration, flexibility and durability?
13. Cane tips are another rabbit hole. Pencil, metal glide, ceramic, marshmallow, rolling marshmallow, roller ball, high-mileage, etc. Which ones give you the best information, and which are best for constant-contact versus two-point touch?
14. For someone around 187 cm tall, is my current 140 cm cane unusually short? I know cane length is very personal and depends on walking speed and technique rather than height alone. I’d be interested to know what other tall cane users use.
15. Has changing to a longer cane significantly changed the way you travel—particularly your walking speed, reaction time at drops/stairs and confidence?
16. If you could own two or three canes rather than trying to make one cane do everything, what would your combination be? For example: rigid everyday cane + compact folding cane + all-terrain cane?
17. Finally, are there good cane manufacturers or unusual cane designs I’ve completely missed?

I’m not necessarily looking for one “best cane.” I’m more interested in understanding why people develop such strong preferences for particular lengths, materials, joints, tips and designs.

Feel free to get extremely nerdy about this. That’s exactly what I’m hoping for. 🙂
#canes #blind

Why NVAccess is not promoting their #nvda satisfaction survey 2026 more? By right, It should be posted at least fortnightly, make it available in the NVAccess site more prominantly, and encourage more people to fill it up through the in-process blog. When I search for it now on google, I am only getting the facebook post, and all other likns are to the NvDA Braille surveyand the NvDA Speech Synthesizer survey that took place 1 year ago. Am I missing something?
Here's the link for those still haven't filled this up.
https://www.nvaccess.org/survey2026

@NVAccess #screenReader #NVDA

RE: https://toot.cafe/@aardrian/117356918165373612

Very interesting pattern to note here.
Line chart of primary screen reader usage since 2009. JAWS is the primary desktop in every survey except 2019, when it was NVDA. JAWS has a steady decline from 68% in 2009 to 40% in 2019, then jumped to 54% in 2021, then down to 41% in 2024, then back up to 55 % in 2026. NVDA has a steady incline from 3% to 41%, then down to 31% in 2021, then up to 38% in 2024, then back down to 33% in 2026.

Chart of screen reader usage. Since 2017 JAWS and NVDA regularly switch places as the most commonly used screen reader. VoiceOver has always remained third, and Narrator 4th since introduction to the survey in 2017. JAWS decreased from 74% to 61% since 2009, with a notably higher usage in 2021 of 70% and 69% in 2026, and increases in usage of NVDA, VoiceOver, and Narrator over time, with NVDA usage decreasing in 2021 then increasing again to surpass JAWS at 66% in 2024 and then decreasing to 59% in 2026.

Respondents indicating that they are very or somewhat satisfied by their primary screen reader:
• NVDA - 96.7%
• JAWS - 95.9%

The perception of free or low-cost screen readers as being viable alternatives has decreased slightly from 78.1% in 2024 to 74.6% in 2026.

Only 61.9% of JAWS users answered "Yes" compared to an overwhelming 91.2% of VoiceOver users and 94% of NVDA users. Those that use free or low-cost screen readers as their primary screen reader have a much better perception of them than those who do not. Respondents with "Advanced" screen reader proficiency were also more favorable of free/low-cost screen readers.
https://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey11/

#nvda #jaws #blind #screenReader

#UsefulAIPrompts https://leaseysocial.com/@brian/117339006338378237

A very similar-looking add-on is Notifications Controller by Travis Roth. It can handle Windows toast notifications, UI Automation notifications, and ARIA live-region alerts, and it keeps a notification history that can be reviewed later.

It also lets you create rules based on the application, website, or notification text, and decide whether matching notifications should be spoken, shown in braille, represented by a sound, or silenced entirely.

GitHub:
https://github.com/travisroth/notificationscontroller
#nvda #blind https://aus.social/@jcsteh/117266208635187664